Hells Angels remanded in custody

8 September 2004

AMSTERDAM — All 12 Hells Angels gang members charged with the February murder of three “brothers” were remanded in custody together with a drugs suspect by Amsterdam Court for an extra three months on Tuesday.

The public prosecution has accused the 13 men of involvement in the shooting deaths of three members of the Hells Angels chapter the Nomads, including club president Paul de Vries, 54. The murders allegedly stemmed from a botched cocaine deal.

The three bullet-riddled bodies were found on 13 February in a stream in the southern Dutch town of Echt. The prosecution claims the men had been killed two days earlier in the Nomads’ clubhouse in the nearby town of Oirsbeek.

The meeting room in the clubhouse — which the police claim had just been renovated — was demolished and renovated after the three murders. But police allege they still found blood traces of the three dead men in the room.

A meeting was held on 11 February, at which the three victims were murdered, the prosecution alleges. The bodies were then taken the same night in a white delivery van hired from a Sittard company and dumped in the canal.

Shortly before the arrest of the two main suspects in March, police reportedly made a deal with a gang member who co-operated in a staged kidnapping. The gang member is Angelo Diaz, a member of a Curacao-based Hells Angels chapter.

But during the pre-trial hearing on Monday and Tuesday, defence lawyers requested the suspects be released from remand. The lawyers accused the prosecution of having insufficient evidence implicating the individual involvement of the defendants.

They also said that claims the murders were the result of a “club decision” are not corroborated in the prosecution’s case dossier.

Subject: Dutch news